A day off … I really shouldn’t be taking days off as I didn’t have much time. But Ariel and Dylan from Blake Security had Sebastian covered. And honestly, I needed some separation.

I was getting too close. I knew it. Ariel probably knew it. Everyone knew it. But still, there I was, playing with fire. And kissing a prince.

This was one of the few times I’d been alone since leaving home. In my apartment, yes, I was alone. But I was always well aware that Sebastian was next door. I was always aware of his movements, of who was watching him, and the timing of when I’d have to be on again. This morning I was grateful for some time out. Sebastian was safe for now. He was being tailed as he took pictures around the city, and I could focus on getting my head straight.

As I crawled on my blanket in the middle of Bryant Park, I grabbed my book and lay back. I tried not to think of Sebastian, which honestly, at this point was impossible. Was this what it was like to actually be with him, to have every single solitary thought focused entirely on him? I wasn’t sure I wanted that.

Good for you because you can’t have that. He’s not yours.

Yes, the ever-present truth. Playing with fire was indeed playing with fire. I was playing with my future. I was playing with the respect that I was so desperate to own. And if I was being honest, I was playing with his life. I knew I could do a good job. And I knew I was going to, but getting too close to him would blur the lines. It would make me cloudy. And maybe I would miss something. Hell, maybe I was missing something now. The king had been adamant that the prince’s life was in danger. So far, outside of the club and Lucas as an unknown, I wasn’t exactly sure what the danger was. I hadn’t yet seen anything to prove that he was in danger.

So you doubt your king?

God, I was such a mess. I scrubbed a hand over my face. Get your shit together, Penny. You have a job. Just do it. In a matter of weeks, you’ll be back home and this won’t be a problem anymore. Inside my bag, my phone rang. For the briefest of seconds I considered not answering it. Ariel knew I was taking a day for myself, but if it was a Sebastian emergency, I needed to deal with it. With a groan, I rolled over, grabbed my purse, and pulled out my phone. Instead of some kind of Royal Highness emergency, it was more of a Home Alone situation.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hello, daughter. You’re still alive? I wanted to confirm myself by hearing your voice, because as you know, all I’ve gotten is a series of vague emails from you.”

Ah, the guilt. “Mom, you know I can’t go into detail, so stop sulking. You know where I am. What I’m doing. I can’t tell you the day-to-day detail.”

I could almost see my mother rolling her eyes. “But I’m your mother. I’m also a member of the Royal Guard. I know things. Besides what can possibly be happening that I can’t know?”

Lord have mercy. “Yeah, Mom, I know you know things. It’s just not particularly interesting. Do you really want to hear which route I took to follow the prince last Friday?”

My mother groaned. “Fine, but at least tell me you’re alive.”

I laughed. “The sound of my voice isn’t enough confirmation?”

“You know it’s fine, but a video would be better.”

I hit the FaceTime button on my phone and waited several seconds for her to connect. When her beautiful face lit the screen, my heart squeezed. Mommy. I missed her. I missed having someone to talk to who understood me. Ariel was amazing and she always backed me up, but she wasn’t quite the same as my Mom. “Hey, you.”

“Hey, baby face. You look tired. Are you tired? Are you not sleeping?”

Maybe a video wasn’t such a good idea. “I haven’t been sleeping great, but I’m fine. I had the day off today, so I’m in the park with a book. I’m just going to relax for a minute.”

“Why aren’t you painting?”

And this was why I loved my mother, because she understood me. She knew that at my core, art was my passion. It was what I loved, an expression of who I was. And without knowing my daily routine, she just assumed that painting was going to be part of it. “I have been, actually. But today I just needed to get out of the apartment, and I didn’t want to be stuck in the studio all day. It’s the end of October and it’s blazing hot still. So I figured I would try and catch a cool breeze in the park.”

“Ah, I wish I was there with you.”

“Me too. Maybe when I get home we can actually take a trip together. Come back to America and go on some kind of wild city group tour.”

My mother laughed. “Yes! We’re going to Vegas.”

I covered my eyes. “Mom, Vegas is probably the last place I want to go with my mother.”

She waved me off with a hand. “Whatever. I’m a cool mom. I’m gonna get you a boyfriend.” I must have winced because her brow lifted. “Let me guess: you’re officially done with the one you had before?”

How should I answer this? “Yeah, you were right all along. Besides, having him and holding on to him is keeping me from doing what I needed to do.”

She pursed her lips and lifted a perfectly arched brow. “Is that it? It has nothing to do with the whole ‘he had no idea how to treat you’ thing? Now that you’re not with him anymore, you and I can have some hard-truth conversations about your ex-boyfriend.”

Oh shit. What did she know? What did she suspect? “Keyword: ex. And do we really need to? Honestly, he didn’t take it well. He actually told me no.”

Mom laughed. Her peals of laughter made my lips twitch. It was hard not to smile when my mother was laughing like that and throwing her whole body into it. “I mean honestly, how are you going to say no when someone breaks up with you?”

“That’s what I said to Ariel. I mean, I was like, ‘Hey, we’re done,’ and he was all, ‘Nope.’ As if I was just going to heed his directive. It was crazy considering what he did to me—” I cut myself off. Shit. “Um, I just mean why was I so insistent about holding on to our relationship?”

Mom shook her head. “Look sweetheart, you don’t have to tell me exactly what happened. Just knowing that he hurt you is enough for me to give him the hairy eyeball. I don’t need to know all the details. And you don’t need to feel like you can’t talk to me.”

“I know I can talk to you. I just don’t want to go into all the details, you know?”

“I get it. I just want you to know that I am here if you want to talk.”

Was it safe to tell her? What if I didn’t give her any specific details and just talked in a general sense? Besides, I was dying to talk to someone who wouldn’t judge me. “The thing is, I sort of think I have a thing for someone else.”

Mom’s brows lifted and she grinned, leaning forward toward the camera. “Oh, do tell. I want all the juicy details.”

It was funny how in some ways my mother acted like she was my best friend. I hoped I could be as good a mother as she was one day. “It’s just this guy. It’s a really complicated situation. Um … ” How can I say this exactly? “He’s emotionally unavailable. We’re sort of friends now, I guess. But it feels like something, and it’s confusing because I just got off the thing with Robert, and he is clearly not open or available for anything. But then he kissed me the other night and—” I could feel the flush creeping up my neck. “I don’t think I’ve ever been kissed like that before.”

My mother clapped her hands. “Oh my gosh. You look like you’re falling in love.”

And there she was being too enthusiastic. “Mom, it’s not love. It’s just that for the first time, I felt different. You know, like I’ve been making too many safe choices. I can’t have him, but this feels … good. I feel different when I’m around him, you know?”

“Penny, I know. It’s how I felt when I met your father.”

“Oh God, please don’t go into too much detail. But I do love it when you talk about how you guys fell in love back then.”

Mom shook her head. “You’re such a stubborn girl. Listen, baby, I have just one question.”

“No, Mom, he’s not married. It’s just a complicated situation. He’s got a lot on his plate, and he isn’t looking for anything right now.” Somehow I got the impression things would be better if he was married.

“Well, sweetheart, in my experience, when a man says he’s not looking for something, he’s usually running scared. It may either be from his past, from responsibility, or from pain. You just keep being you, and he won’t have any choice but to fall in love.”

If her advice was right, then we would both be entering a world of hurt. “A part of me hopes it could be that simple, Mom. But I don’t know.”

After another half hour of talking to my mom, and the rest of the morning spent at the park enjoying the sunshine, I headed home. I wanted to grab a shower and change into my painting clothes for my shift with Sebastian. The plan was to be on the balcony painting when he returned home. That way, maybe he’d be compelled to come over and talk to me.

As always, I avoided the elevator and took the stairs up the three flights to my floor. When I unlocked my front door, the hairs at the back of my neck stood at attention. Immediately, I reached for the baton that I kept tucked inside my backpack.

Weapon in hand, feet in fight stance and hands up, I prepared to fight the intruder.

* * *

“There’s no need to fight me, Penelope.” The voice was smooth, low, and familiar. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

I reached out and flipped on the light switch. “Damn it, Michael, what the fuck are you doing here? You can’t be seen here.”

He folded his arms. “What? I’m going to interfere with your secret mission to bring in the prince?”

My eyes went wide. “How did you know about that?”

My brother threw up his hands and started to pace. “I swear to God. You pay zero attention to what I do. I work in the intelligence department, right under Dad. From the moment that you called Robert and he said you were in New York, I reverse engineered that. The crown prince went to university at Columbia. He used his mother’s maiden name to buy him some anonymity. And lo and behold, when I did a search on that name, it turned up in this apartment building which he owns and a bar a few blocks down the street. It really wasn’t that difficult. Once I knew the job, he was easy to find. And that made you even easier to find. What the hell are you doing here, Penny? Do you understand that we have a whole division of men dedicated to finding the prince and bringing him home? And somehow you stumbled upon his location and you think that you’re going to become some kind of conquering hero being out here by yourself, to what, fuck him into coming home?”

I stared at my brother. The rage monster inside my head jumped to her feet and flipped on the ass-whooping switch as I extended the baton. “You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. You need to get out. If he sees you, he’ll bolt.”

“I’m better than that. No one saw me come in here, and no one will see me leave.”

“You’re such a pompous asshole. You think you are so goddamn perfect that you can stroll in to my apartment and tell me what to do?”

“Someone needs to. You’re lucky I didn’t take this to Dad. He gives you some bullshit assignment and you ditch it to come after the prince? He’s going to kill you. But I’ll cover for you. You need to pack up your shit and come home. As soon as you do and you’re out of here, I’ll call in a guard to come and babysit the prince.”

There had been many times I’d been jealous of my brother, many times I wished he was kinder to me. There was only one time that I’d felt betrayed by him, and only once, in this moment, did I hate him. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m not the town idiot?”

He shook his head. “Not for a moment.”

I spread my arms and then started to walk toward him, the baton still extended. He narrowed his gaze at my weapon, and then his brows furrowed for a moment as if he wasn’t sure if I would get physical with him. “You think I magically happened upon the prince? You think it was luck I got an apartment right next to his?”

“Yep, pure luck. And it’s no secret Ariel is a wizard with a computer. If she accessed classified files to deduce where he might be, she’s in a lot of trouble. But you can protect her. All you have to do is pack up and go home.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just pack up. I’ll just abandon the work I’ve been doing here for the last month. I’ll just stop and go home and let you call in a guard and take the credit.”

“You think that’s what this is about? I’m trying to keep you safe. I’m trying to protect your reputation. Can you imagine what this would do to your career when everyone finds out that you’re boning the guy?”

I couldn’t help it. I feinted to my left so he would think I was going that way, and then I delivered a straight right jab, hitting him directly in the nose. His yowl of pain gave me a kind of satisfaction I hadn’t ever felt.

“You fucking hit me!”

I held on to my baton. “And I will do it again. If you ever insult me like that again, I swear to God, I will maim that pretty face of yours. Never mind that you look just like my father, I will end you.”

He glowered at me as he shifted onto the balls of his feet. “You got off a lucky hit, little sister. You won’t catch me off my guard again.”

“You know what? I’ve been feeling bad for you for weeks now. I was wondering what it was like to walk around with a secret like yours. It’s the only reason I didn’t tell Mom and Dad, because I was worried about you. I was protecting you. You betray me, and I’m worried about you … like an idiot. There’s something seriously wrong with me. But then you show up here and suggest that somehow I’m here playing at Royal Guard. Did you for once think that Dad knows exactly where I am?”

He frowned at that. “There’s no way anyone in their right mind would have sent you after His Royal Highness. You’re the worst at this job.”

“You know, for years I’ve laughed it off when people poked fun at me. But you know what? I’m actually pretty good at this.” Now all you have to do is keep believing that. “I was assigned this job, you shit. I’m not playing. I’m protecting the prince. And here’s the kicker, asshole: I wasn’t assigned by Dad.”

He glowered at me and still held his pose. “What? You’re suggesting the king himself sent you here?”

I didn’t respond. I just squared my shoulders and glared. “You can get out now. Go back to your boyfriend. Leave me the fuck alone. I’m not leaving this assignment unless King Cassius himself calls me off. You can feel free to attempt to call a Royal Guard, but I know for a fact that it has to go through Dad. You will not be the one taking credit for finding Sebastian. Your career will not propel for it. This has nothing to do with you. It’s your turn to go home.” I turned from him, walked toward the door, and opened it. “Now get out. Oh, and if you ever suggest that I’m sleeping my way through doing my job, I really will fuck up that pretty face.”

He looked like he maybe didn’t want to leave. His brows furrowed in confusion. When he stepped by me, his scowl remained in place. “You’re playing with fire here. You don’t have what it takes, and you’re going to get hurt. I’m trying to prevent that from happening. Why can’t you see that?”

“The only person who has hurt me in the last several months was you. Go.”

My brother stalked out of my apartment. Childishly, I slammed the door behind him and then sank to the floor, letting the tears flow freely.